new competencies and
innovations in logistics

The jobs listed are characterised by their tasks in the global logistics chain in the warehouse:

• One works on the order picking function
• Another is specialised in forklift and lifting machines driving, whereas
• The last one in the warehousing, works as a handling worker
• As white collars, one designs and conceives the logistics chain
• Another manages a logistics unit
• The last one is a technician specialised in logistics.

It has to be noted that jobs in the white collar group are not described so precisely, as in the blue collar group.

This tool is based on a systematic approach of job definitions, including job contents, competences and trainings. It has been conceived as a general nomenclature for employment purposes, covering jobs in all sectors and at all levels of qualifications. Each of them is then described in the largest number of categories as possible: job titles, required conditions to fulfil tasks, working conditions, locations, common activities, etc. called R.O.M.E., from the French title "Répertoire opérationnel des métiers et des emplois", which means Operational nomenclature of occupations and jobs, it has integrated six logistics jobs that turn out to be best reflection of the national situation of logistics profiles in companies. The specificity of the tool is that the logistics job titles were invented by the employment agency team and not taken out from their original companies' appellation. Because the national agency needs these job definitions to provide a very practical tool for their agents, the main preoccupation for logistics jobs in R.O.M.E. is the attempt to describe a job in the largest possible scope, as well as with the utmost precision.

The best illustration of this need for a practical tool combined with theoretical titles, is the job called ""designer-optimiser of the logistics chain", which is impossible to meet with this title in a company. This title, as a very conceptual appellation, aims to cover a large number of potentialities, in terms of competences and qualifications and to allow the employment agencies to offer these sorts of posts to various job seekers.

The logistics jobs in R.O.M.E. form a set of job definitions that contributes to the visibility of the logistics activities in the French labour market. To reflect the logistics services in France, a first list of jobs has been realised in the first draft of R.O.M.E. in 1995. The jobs included in the category 'logistics staff' were the following:

• Operator of goods storage and distribution ("agent/agente du stockage et de la repartition des marchandises")
• Goods loading/unloading operator ("agent/agente de la manipulation et du déplacement des charges"),
• The only white collar job was called the logistics manager, or logistician or logistics services manager.

But the logistics services increased in the companies in the early 2000s and the list of jobs became insufficient. That is the reason why the 2004 R.O.M.E. update became necessary.

The evolution of information systems, of cranes and machines in warehouses, and any other change emerge as new challenges for logistics workers, the national employment agencies becoming unable to give advice and adequate job proposals to job seekers in these domains. The national agency contributes, with the development of logistics jobs in the R.O.M.E frame, to a better understanding of the requirements for logistics jobs in companies. The job seekers subsequently apply for logistics jobs and have a better knowledge of what they are expected to perform.

Logistics jobs in R.O.M.E have been defined much more in an activity-oriented approach, than in a functional approach (storage, production, etc.). This approach is reflected in the choice of an empirical methodology, while the method to define the activities and competences is based on an empirical survey within the companies. In the logistics job definition process, the ANPE team takes benefit from new development in technologies that allow them to explore the refined R.O.M.E. as an electronic product/ website. Then, the refined R.O.M.E. adapted itself very closely to the evolution of logistics jobs; the updating is permanent and some new developments should arise.

The logistics jobs described in R.O.M.E. tool form a set of available definitions useful for employment purposes. R.O.M.E. is a general nomenclature that has been elaborated to facilitate the employment agencies' missions. Since its creation it has integrated, the logistics jobs as a new domain. It presents itself as a highly-structured list of job occupations, giving correspondent jobs in various sectors at a similar level.

The difficulties of the employment services in France are closely linked to the attempt to balance job offers and job applications. The R.O.M.E. nomenclature gives an opportunity to the agencies to harmonise and develop a common language to circulate in the labour market.

The nomenclature is organised in four main categories:

• The occupational category;
• The professional domain;
• The jobs;
• The specificities of the jobs.

With these elements, each occupational profile has its own coded number and its own set of activities, tasks and competences.

For each job, one form was created, with the following items (see annex with the empty form for logistics jobs). The combination of the three terms that constitute a job in its environment are the titles used by companies and/or organisations, the competences, activities and abilities, and the working organisation/conditions: its environment are the titles used by the companies and/ or the organizations, the competences, activities and abilities, and the working organization/conditions:

Main titles of the job

Brief definition

General working conditions

Training and experience needed

Common competences with a distinction between:
Basics technical competences

Associated competences

Abilities linked to the job

Specific activities

Location where the activity has to be performed and

Working conditions

To fill in the tables with the adapted data on logistics jobs, the national employment agency has a central position, because its local services are at the interface of the complete chain employment-qualifications-competences, and therefore, able to produce a framework of competences and qualifications specially designed for each job.

The agency's expertise could facilitate employees' mobility in the logistics domain. What is clearly visible to the ANPE actors is the fact that mobility is a real issue for the Public Employment Service. They cannot ignore the willingness of most of the salaried people to put together their knowledge and know-how and to be able to change their job in one sector or to transfer their competences to another sector. This specific demand coming from employees, plus job seekers' needs, become one of the reason for R.O.M.E. to be refined.

As such, the R.O.M.E. repertory is the result of the aggregation of a list of coded jobs situations and activities. The data collected reach a deep level of precision, because of the methodological process used to produce such materials. With each occupation "card" the area of mobility for the individuals at work is available. Professional activities vary from one situation to another, even if they are in the same competence area.

The innovative factor regarding the definitions of tasks and activities of logistics employees in R.O.M.E is the search for a complete and exhaustive framework for each job family. The logistics jobs included in R.O.M.E. are not one job after the other. It consists in one "large" title that recovers in reality a complete list of jobs with corresponding titles, appellations and activities' descriptions. For example, the storage operator (or handling operator) could be called storage agent, shipping agent, handling agent, logistics handling agent, inbound operator, warehouse operator, logistics operator, forklift driver, logistics warehouse forklift driver, handler driver, etc.

The approach of jobs by sectors and companies brings a specific perspective to the job definition itself. Concerning the blue collar jobs, the common activities proposed in the questionnaire sent to the operators, include physical tasks, control tasks, information system related tasks, then all tasks related to orders and customers' specific requirements, labelling tasks, and all supporting activities that could be performed in some companies. Concerning the white collar jobs, the operations to be achieved deal with the ability to understand logistics as a process. The white collar job in charge of the organisation process, whose various titles are "logistics engineer", "logistics project manager", logistics analyst", gains a new competence in his job definition.

In the former definition, he was "conceiving and organising strategies the most rational to ensure the progress of a product from its production to its distribution, with a regular preoccupation of optimising the quality/ service/ costs relationship". Updated in 2004, the definition now includes the dimension of the means to achieve the optimising goals and the conception of the procedures needed to perform the activities, with the crucial distinction between information and material flows. Last, the position in the logistics process is described more precisely, with the precisions of the main interlocutors for the job - industrials and/or providers - and of the type of logistics concerned by the job. Apart from the common activities, such as "understand all the logistics and transport terms used in the day to day operation of logistics and transport processes, understand the purpose of logistics and its importance for the success of the organisation, be able to propose ways in which the logistics process could be improved", another new key competence is the knowledge of the English language that is now generally required.

R.O.M.E. in logistics has been difficult to develop for two reasons: the concentration of information in a very few organisations and companies, and the low number of experts specialised in these matters. Logistics was developed as a combined domain with the transport sector in France, and the national employment agency encountered several problems while trying to get information on the logistics process from transport companies. Logistics is a subject for companies' managers, who are looking for the optimisation of their needs, but job definitions in companies are either not well developed, or not available for researchers of institutional actors. Therefore, the solution was the two-step method, with a thorough knowledge of the described tasks and criteria, a complete documentation on job offers and job vacancies, and then a series of interviews in various sectors, various companies, with various levels of hierarchy.

The directory is available on paper and web support. It means that job seekers as well as companies' people can have the details on a job or an available training that is needed for one job. Then, the correspondence with training programmes allows the employment agents in the local agencies to advice job seekers or companies much better about the possible ways of obtaining a logistics job. Last, logistics is visible in the employment institutions thanks to this tool, because it circulates among labour market actors.

The methodology and the approach constitute an interesting way of organising data on logistics jobs. As such, logistics jobs have been observed and activities described in a two level method: first, a questionnaire has been sent to a large number of companies selected in a sample, second, a series of interviews with managers, technicians and operators in some selected companies, according to the answers received from the questionnaires. As such, the elaboration of the questionnaires - one for the operators in the warehouses, and another for white collar jobs - is an enrichment. The principle that is at the origin of the integration of logistics jobs in R.O.M.E. tool, is important and of interest, because it has been initiated with the idea of developing an employment and recruitment public service, involved first in the better definition of jobs, but also in the possible professional mobility of all workers.